


A Man For All Seasons

by Foxberry



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fae Marco, Falling In Love, First Dates, First Kiss, First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22095133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxberry/pseuds/Foxberry
Summary: Of all the things that Jean had been expecting on a several day hike up the mountain, he hadn’t expected the ball-freezing cold or finding himself lost in the middle of a fantastic little valley no doubt called fuck-knows-where.Nor did he expect to find himself surrounded by a group that called themselves Fae, or to meet the likes of Marco and find himself returning to the same valley every season.
Relationships: Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	A Man For All Seasons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leggyfae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leggyfae/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Dems!
> 
> This is a long overdue fic gift that I finally finished /part/ of. I have more to come but wanted to get the first bit out on your birthday! I hope you like it and the rest of it when it's finished!

If Jean never had to see trees again, he could live with that. Fuck the branches crying out like some ghost possessed it. Fuck the leaves falling every fucking place that the ground was. Everywhere.

Of all the things that Jean had been expecting on a several day hike up the mountain, he hadn’t expected the ball-freezing cold or finding himself lost in the middle of a fantastic little valley no doubt called fuck-knows-where. The locale had little going for it but running water, trees, and… a collapsing wooden bench that began to look more like a blacksmith’s table. Despite its disrepair, Jean slumped onto it, exhausted, knees wide apart like it was the lost throne of a civilisation long forgotten. Not that he would want to be a ruler and take power for himself, but he could probably live with the idea of someone looking up to him. No one envied the cartographer, not really. They’d tell him how much they wished to travel the kingdom, find lost worlds and hidden cities, but in the end they’d rather stay in their cosy little homes with their mattress of wealth and pretend the world was smaller than it was. 

In his current occupation he was little more than a vagrant, sent off into the world to trace the land and sea by hand. It would be fine if not for how ridiculously lonely he’d become. The forests held little secrets over time. A brook was still a brook and a valley spoke of surrounding hills, the countryside or forest or grasslands girted by some other aspect of nature that he’d need to capture and relay to the idiot that wanted to venture out there without gaining the knowledge firsthand.   
  
Closing his eyes, Jean listened to the sounds of nature, the soft rustling of the leaves playing like music to his ears, the tune of songbirds echoing off the hills, and felt them drift further and further away. It did not take long for the environment to lull him to sleep, slumping on the park bench, eyes closed but face skywards.   
  
“It… breathes…” a soft voice called after some time, followed by a gentle nudge to his arm. “They’re stranger than the books would have us know.” A hand stroked then pulled at his hair, caressing next over the shell of his ear then down his cheek. The touch was curious, gentle, until it tugged at his earlobe, then his bottom lip, and at his eyelashes.   
  
“Ggnn,” Jean groaned, the weight of sleep heavy upon his eyelids. Fuck waking up. He’d walked for so fucking long that he deserved this nap. He wasn’t going to get up and give directions to some poor lost-for-wit that didn’t know where they’d ended up. Particularly when they hadn’t learned how to keep their hands to themselves. “Leave me be.”   
  
A gasp followed with curious whispers like the canopy of leaves above was spreading gossip about him. “I don’t know!” A scandalised voice continued, “Get closer and find out.”   
  
Yet another high-pitched noise jolted Jean’s mind, so close he was sure the noise itself was prodding at his brain. “I imagine it’s… not… it’s human… yes?”   
  
“I.. no.. they normally don’t venture this far,” answered yet another voice, like the sound of wind through reeds and hollow logs. It judged Jean without even knowing him.    
  
“I expect waking… him?” A more mature voice cut through the whispers. The tone was firm but calm, thick, and sweet like honey. “Will displease him. We should go.” The rustling of leaves underfoot followed with the sounds of hushed chuckling and incoherent whispering.   
  
Jean’s brow furrowed before he squinted open an eye, judging the blurry figures before him. “I’m awake,” he defended himself before he had been accused of anything. Though enough prying eyes and whispers had already been close.   
  
“Sorry, stranger,” the honey-sweet voice piped up. Somehow it was even nicer when speaking to him. “You’re sleeping in the cold. We thought we should… check on you.”   
  
Thinking for a moment, he moved himself to sit upright and cursed the clumsiness of waking. “R-right… y-yes? No…. yes??” Jean blinked, considerably more confused. He patted the bench and confirmed it was indeed the same bench. A sprinkling of snow had coated the ground.   
  
When he looked up and his vision finally decided to function, he noticed the snowflakes adorning the strange man’s hair, much like the freckles that danced across his nose and up his cheeks. He was slightly taller than the rest of them, young men and women dressed in delicate fabrics, wrapped around them like they might slip away at any moment.    
  
Jean had struggled just to get on his damn coat and long socks and undergarments and everything else it took to not get too cold this high up and this deep into the wilderness. Yet somehow their fabrics of silk and chiffon and other embroidered dresses and tunics kept them from shivering.   
  
“Are you not cold?” he asked, perplexed, eyeing up the garment of the tallest stranger. It had to be at least down to his knees but no further. His broad sun-kissed shoulders seemed to hold his garment as if by magic because there was nothing but decorative twists and spirals of gold in the soft mint green.   
  
The stranger smiled and shooed away the others. Their heads turned back even as they walked away, no different than the curious passersby that couldn’t keep their nose out of other people’s business. Though he supposed he had clearly led himself down a garden path and now he being poked and prodded and called  _ human _ .   
  
“Me?” the stranger asked pointedly when the answer was blatantly obvious. He appeared amused by the question and Jean’s entire presence. He’d fit in right at home with some of the stuck up assholes back at the office. Yet… Jean couldn’t deny that he was considerably more handsome than anyone even within a block of that building.   
  
“No, you tulip. I don’t get cold. Not unless…” The man steadied himself and crossed his arms defensively. “Fae don’t get cold.” He was so certain and matter-of-fact, like Jean should’ve known this and it was an insult that he didn’t.   
  
In his confusion, Jean pulled a face and repeated back the strange word, “Fae…”   
  
“Yes?” The stranger tilted his head with a strange smile, his brows furrowing together. “You have not heard of us?”   
  
“I’m still asleep.” He made a discerning glance at the blur of faces and sparkling eyes staring on from a distance, deciding that he must still be stuck within a dream. “Have to be.”   
  
The stranger smiled, offering out a hand in a showy twist of his wrist. It appeared his clothes weren’t the only thing dramatic about him. “What is your name, petal?” he asked the moment Jean look his hand.   
  
He’d never expected to find the stranger’s hand warm, nor the skin of them soft. It took him a long moment to even process the question. Who the fuck called anyone petal? Hadn’t he just been called tulip? He was being messed with. He had to be, or this was a very twisted fucked up dream he was having… Everything certainly felt real.   
  
“Jean…” he answered finally with a curt nod.   
  
The quizzical look on the man’s face didn’t take away from the handsome features of his face. “Jonquil?”    
  
“No…” Jean took his time, taking the word in, eyes narrowing in his confusion. That was far from what he said, the name of a flower. He steadied himself when he repeated his name clearly. “Jean.”   
  
“Strange name,” the stranger insisted.   
  
“Stranger than Jonquil?” Jean asked bluntly before holding his tongue the moment his eyes caught the man’s again. How he managed to find himself lost so easily when he navigated for a living he didn’t know. “What’s yours then?”   
  
“Amaryllis.” The name flowed off his tongue like sap from a tree, like honey from a hive. It was so rich and soft and full of immeasurable warm that Jean forgot for a second that he was cold.  
  
“A Mar…” He sounded out the only part of the response he made out before his brain shut down and forgot the rest.    
  
“Perhaps it is too much for their minds,” the smaller one piped in.   
  
“What?” Jean snapped back.   
  
With a raise of his hand, the stranger silenced his company that flitted behind him. “You shall call me… Mar… co. I believe that is a name your kind use.”   
  
Jean pulled a face, staring from one face to another to another that surrounded him. The only one that didn’t blur in his vision was the stranger before him. Perhaps he was their leader, a representative. “What? So I’m too stupid to pronounce your name so you had to give me another one.”   
  
“Would you prefer the other?” he countered with a small smile. There had to be some kind of confidence that came with wearing so little at such a temperature.   
  
“...no. I’m fine.” Jean pouted. “Marco it is.”   
  
Clapping and waving his hands, Marco dismissed the rest of his audience. He clicked his tongue and appeared to chirped small high-pitched sounds before finally they went their separate ways. The strange intimacy of just the two of them felt more comfortable than Jean had expected. He knew--thought he didn't know why--he could trust Marco, even if he was lost in a place that no human had ever been.   
  
“Where am I?” Jean asked, pushing himself to his feet. The ache of hours of sleep settling in his legs. The cold had never been that kind to him. That didn’t change regardless of where he was.   
  
Marco gave a long look of contemplation, as if deciding Jean’s very worth or intelligence. His face softened after his brief calculation to point out the obvious. “Where you were seated?”   
  
Jean stared back. “You don’t say.” He rubbed at his temples and shook his head as he pulled out his map. “I mean… the name… of this place.” Rolling it out on his lap, he brushed his fingers over his path to the unmarked section in the centre.   
  
“You seek to lead other humans here?” Marco’s tone lost a hint of his brightness, sinking to something darker and more sombre.   
  
“I…” Jean tapped his map in front of him, trying to find the right words. “Map the world... so others may find it... and find their way home.”   
  
“This is not a place for them to find, Jean. You mustn't…” He made a strange sound with his tongue or his lips or both. A light trill of a note, thoughtful and cautious. “I will show you.”   


Sceptical would be the easiest word Jean could use to describe how he felt. Yet it was not the only one. The others escaped him, completely, words disappearing off his tongue as Marco took his hand. All Jean could do was nod while he was dragged along completely willing.

Marco showed him the wonder of his world, as small and as hidden as it was. From the glistening waterfalls that skipped down the hills to the lake hidden in the valley. Tree after tree grew tall and wide in ways that Jean had never seen. Vines climbed the lines in their bark, spiralling up towards the sky.   
  
He finally brought them to a clearing in the middle of the rainforest, where the ferns bowed at Marco’s presence. The air itself smelled of the finest mix of jasmine and magnolias as if they had just bloomed into being for the two of them. Around them were dottings of dragonsnaps and lavender, tall and delicate guardians around a soft patch of grass, bespeckled by mushrooms in a pattern not unlike Marco’s face.  
  
“This…” he presented, gracefully kneeling to the grass as he nodded to the canopy of trees above them. “Is my garden.” His smile was bright as all the sunbeams shining down into the clearing. Jean was sure he had never seen anything brighter.   
  
“It’s… beautiful.” Jean had no other words for they were lost the moment he opened his mouth. Too much beauty in one place had him stunned. The city gardens could hold nothing to these. Perhaps it was a delicate magic that strung this world together, every flower in its place, and here he was a human among these Fae witnessing it all.   
  
Marco’s laughter sounded like a bubbling brook in the summer, just as warm and buoyant. “You are welcome here at any time… Jean.”    
  
“Oh I’ll definitely be back,” he answered while he marvelled at the sight around him. Perhaps he could find more reason to return. His map could wait. There was so much more within this world he had not yet seen. “I should probably be going… I have… things I should attend to.”   
  
Though what those things were Jean couldn’t remember. His desire to stay by the whistling birds and singing streams and the face of a man whose smile could outshine the sun filled his mind instead.    
  
Marco nodded knowingly and reached out to grasp Jean’s hand, thumb caressing it affectionately. “Of course, petal.” He was so forward and comfortable in doing so it took Jean aback, bringing a warm flush to his cheeks. He’d known of no one else who would be so affectionate.   
  
“I will, of course, miss your presence, my dear human,” he finally said as he elegantly rose to his feet. From Jean had seen, the Fae had no issues with balance or grace or a whole other host of gifts he had yet to discover. “I do hope you will return soon.”   
  
With that he offered his arm and escorted Jean back to the bench where they had met. Their walk took them from the garden, past the streams and the other Fae giggling to themselves, and a footpath made of cobblestone and moss. It seemed such a shame to leave.   
  
For all of his peculiarities, Jean was bewitched by his kindness. Marco was a strange creature to be sure, but Jean wasn’t so different himself. Neither of them spoke a word, finding comfort in the silence, until Jean turned to wish his goodbyes.   
  
“Thank you…” Jean began only to shiver in the cold. He’d forgotten that he had felt cold... Strange. He’d been so warm when he was around Marco. “May we meet again.”   
  
Marco bowed his head, pausing to cough lightly into his hand. “May we meet as the seasons do.” He gave Jean once last smile before he waved and disappeared into the woods.    
  
Jean stood there for a long time, simply listening. Somehow the forest here didn’t seem as bright or as light or as sweet and like… warmth and home. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but he knew there was something. He would be back again to find out. Perhaps when the weather was warmer.   


**Author's Note:**

> There's probably 1-2 more chapters to go to finish the story I have in mind!


End file.
